Generally, a fishing reel includes a drive shaft, which is rotatably mounted between side members and driven by operation of a crank or handle mounted at one end of the drive shaft. The drive shaft customarily carries a main gear that drives a pinion on a spool shaft, or on a shaft carrying a bail mechanism for rewinding a fishing line. Also carried on many fishing reels on the end of the drive shaft adjacent the crank is a drag adjustment nut or star wheel that enables the fisherman to adjust the amount of pull on the line that will be withstood by the reel before the spool yields to be as rotated in reverse by pull on the line.
Fishing reels are generally manufactured for operation by right-handed fishermen and, a left-handed angler operates the conventional fishing reel only with considerable difficulty, unless he can find a fishing reel with the handle and drag adjustment on the opposite end of the shaft.
A fishing reel with a reversible, right-hand or left-hand crank is shown in Noda U.S. Pat. No. 4,572,455, granted Feb. 25, 1986.